It’s safe, I tell you:

A Tokyo clinic is seeking volunteers for a highly safe clinical trial in September. Participants stay in the clinic for 4 days/3 nights and take one regular dose of an extremely safe medication that has been on the market in the US since 2003. Each person who completes the four-day trial will receive a total of JPY 200,000. Full Internet access, video games, DVDs and other entertainment will be provided for the duration of the trial.

I just bumped into Yatta for the first time in years. Yatta!

Easy Rider, salad the mall!

There was one channel on TV in Japan that showed complicated math (and physics?) problems for at least two hours one morning. I request that someone who knows math kindly solve all of the equations:

Shibuya Crossing is one of the busiest intersections in Japan. Traffic is stopped in all four directions and pedestrians are allowed to cross the intersection in any direction they so please (this is apparently called a pedestrian scramble). Here’s a video of the intersection at a not particularly busy time, with a really irritating background song that I now regret using:

This intersection was used in Lost in Translation:

Sadly we didn’t get to see the big dinosaur.

I attended a baseball game in Japan between the Yomiuri Giants and the Hanshin Tigers. When you buy tickets in Japan for a baseball game, they ask you which team you’re rooting for and seat you within the stadium based on that question. For my game, all the Tigers fans were on the third base side of the stadium, and all the Giants fans were on the first base side. This was done to facilitate the organized chanting that goes on throughout the entire game without stop. They sing, they chant, they wave flags, they bang sticks together… the whole time.

It was hard to watch the game what with all the fun of well organized and stadium-wide chanting.

I have a few video clips from my travels which I haven’t done anything with yet. I’m going to start putting them online in the next few days. Here’s the first, the tuna auction in Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market:

It was surprisingly sing-songy.

The Georgetown Law Library Blog links to a collection of national and international government provided statistics sites. Thanks to this, I’m now perusing the Tuvalu Central Statistics Division’s June 2008 biannual report.

At the same time, Kottke links to to a site that has graphed Japanese minute-by-minute census data to let us know what the Japanese are doing right now.

My last set of pictures from the big trip is now online. Joining New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Cambodia is Japan. From Japan we have a sumo tournament, a baseball game, the Tsukiji fish market, Hakone, Kamakura, Tokyo and people.

As always, here are a few favorites:

And while the picture is not so amazing, the Tokyo government building did have a sign listing the offices of the Declining Birthrate Countermeasures Division.

Assuming all has gone according to plan, I am now in Japan.

Japan, Yomiuri Giants Baseball Game (2008)

Japan, Tokyo (2008)

Japan, Kamakura (2008)

Japan, People (2008)

Japan, Hakone (2008)

Japan was hit by a 7.0 (preliminary) earthquake off the coast of Hokkaido, the island that contains Tokyo. Where RD is going to be in the near future. The news makes this sound not that bad, fortunately.

It may say Giants versus Tigers, but this ticket confirmation is not for a game in San Francisco or Detroit:

Dear [DoorFrame],

Thank you for purchasing your 3 ticket(s) from etix.com.

This email serves as your receipt.

Your method of delivery is: Print At Home.

Your confirmation code is: XXXXXXX

Your ticket(s) are from the following venue(s): ??????Tokyo Dome?

You have been charged for the following:

Serial # Section Row Seat Price Conv. Fee Date Performance
__________________________________________________________________________________________
XXXXXXXX 41(Gate)6(Aisle) 22 114 JPY2,300.00 JPY0.00 September 21, 2008 6:00 PM ??vs???Giants vs Tigers?

Delivery Fee: JPY0.00
Order Fee: JPY0.00
Total Price: JPY2,300.00

Sincerely,
The Staff at etix.com

If you want to read more about this exciting game, you can TRY to do so here. I’m pretty excited about this.

The Nippon Ham Fighters are my new favorite baseball team.  Do you think they fight with ham, or against ham?

Let the ham beware!

I now know exactly how I’m going to spend all of my time in Tokyo.

The best trailer ever… if only I knew ANY Japanese. Via Yes But No But Yes.

CNN: “The suicides are seen as part of a spate of detergent-related deaths that experts say have been encouraged by Internet suicide sites since last summer.”

JapanesePornMusement. (NSFW)

Narita Airport’s “Fun Contents” aren’t all that fun, though I would be interested in seeing Sakura no Yama Park’s 5,300 shrubs.

Why doesn’t Google Maps give me the option to see a foreign map labeled with latin-based characters? This map doesn’t help me (though it is good to know that I’m still able to find a nearby 7-Eleven).

Professional baseball teams in Japan are split into two leagues, and one has the DH!